Seattle is often considered the birthplace of grunge, but it’s modern music scene encompasses a wide variety of genres.
Junior Owen Selwyn, a vocalist and guitarist, is at the center of this scene. He runs a party and music venue, uniquely named PigPen. “Pigpen is the venue I run out of my house where we have a bunch of local bands play, and just have kind of like a giant party where everyone can hang out and be themselves,” Selwyn says.“It started because I’m also in a band, to all you blog people out there, and I was done with playing terrible, terrible shows at like clubs that would like scam us out of money and cut out sets short, and so I was just like, ‘hey! I’ll make my own venue.’” Some of the bands pigpen has hosted in the past include Pom Pom, King Sheim, Ben Root, and bands with members who are Roosevelt students, like B*boys, the discomforts, butter boy, and splitting silence. The discomforts is one of Owens bands, in which he is accompanied by Maya Garzelli, a Roosevelt junior. Garzelli has been playing guitar since 2nd grade and bass since 10th, and they play bass in The Discomforts.
The juxtaposition of The discomforts and bands like B*Boys, a rap group of Roosevelt sophomore boys is a beautiful display of the dichotomy of Seattle’s youth music scene. Diego Cruz, a Roosevelt sophomore and member of B*Boys, shares that Pigpen was their first performance outside of house shows they had hosted. Many students know and adore this boy band, that Cruz says, “started as a way to entertain ourselves and for some reason others listened!”
The passion of Roosevelt students and other teenagers alike who are involved in this community is incredible. Garzelli says, “Music is like an escape. It’s a way to express emotion and feel things that are difficult to communicate or feel things otherwise. It’s really a way to block out the rest of the world, or exist in a different one for a little bit.”
